Chapter Four

Outside in the cot it was very cold, and very dark. Mr Jamie sat on the mattress and held Beth’s hand. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as they’d got outside; once the Tickling Honda had managed to squeeze the cot out of the window. Mr Jamie thought, if he was honest, that the Tickling Honda probably wasn’t actually a very good driver. They had only just made it out of the window in one piece, and now the Tickling Honda was sitting right on the edge of the side of the cot and shouting strange, magical, Tickling Hondary type words. He was getting a bit overexcited, and Mr Jamie thought that if Mummy was there she would probably have told him to calm down and have a sleep. He quite fancied a sleep, actually. He snuggled in next to Beth under his Ben 10 duvet, had a sneaky fart to warm his legs up, and then shut his eyes and imagined he was flying high up in the sky with the Tickling Honda ...

When he woke up Beth was sitting on his head. (He hoped she wasn’t having a poo.) She was talking to the Tickling Honda, who was sitting at the other end of the cot with his frog legs tucked under Mr Jamie’s Ben 10 duvet. He saw Mr Jamie open his eyes and waved.

“Morning! Did you sleep well?"

“Yes thank you”, said Mr Jamie. Or, at least, that’s what he tried to say. Because Beth was sitting on his head what he actually said was “Mmmff fannn ooo”, but the Tickling Honda seemed to understand anyway. Beth, noticing Mr Jamie was awake, shrieked in delight and fell off his head and onto the Tickling Honda, who picked her up and sat her down next to him.

“BAAAAAAAAAAA ba ba ga ba ga ba ba ba” said Beth to Mr Jamie, which he knew meant “I’m very happy to see you, and I’ve had some nice milk to drink, and sorry for sitting on your head and having a poo on it.”

Mr Jamie’s stomach growled like a big angry dog. The Tickling Honda heard it.

“Would you like some breakfast?”

“Yes please”, said Mr Jamie. “I’d like toast with red jam please. That’s what Mummy makes me.”

“Toast with red jam?”, said the Tickling Honda. “Urrrrrgggggggghhhh. DisGUSTing.”

“It’s NOT disgusting”, said Mr Jamie. “It is very nice INDEED.”

“Tickling Hondas don’t like red jam”, said the Tickling Honda. “It makes us fart a lot.”

Mr Jamie laughed a LOT. So did the Tickling Honda.

“What do you have to eat instead?”, asked Mr Jamie.

“We have Plookies”, said the Tickling Honda. “Plookies are the Tickling Honda’s favourite food.”

“What’s a Plookie?”, said Mr Jamie.

“Here you go”, said the Tickling Honda. And he put a Plookie into Mr Jamie’s hand. It looked a bit like a biscuit, and a bit like a cake, and a bit like a wobbly jelly. It was pink and brown, and it had shiny silver sparkles all over it, and it wobbled all over. Mr Jamie put it in his mouth and it wobbled right through his mouth, down his throat and into his tummy. Mr Jamie pulled up his top and looked at his tummy. It was wobbling like a jelly where the Plookie was inside it! And when Mr Jamie looked at the Tickling Honda and Beth ... they had wobbling Plookie-filled tummies too!

“I like Plookies”, said Mr Jamie. “Can I have another one?”

“In a bit”, said the Tickling Honda. “First of all we need to make a plan.”

It was a lovely day and the sun was shining down on the cot. Mr Jamie could see blue sky all around them, and some fluffy white clouds underneath instead of a floor. They looked a bit like sheep. Beth had seen them too, and stuck her hand out between the cot bars and grabbed a bit of cloud. Before Mr Jamie or the Tickling Honda could stop her she shoved it in her mouth and swallowed it all down. Mr Jamie was a bit worried in case she choked, but she did a big smile and then had a burp. Beth liked eating clouds.

“Right then”, said the Tickling Honda. “What shall we do?”

Mr Jamie was a bit shocked. How did he know what to do? It was the Tickling Honda who had brought them up here and made Beth’s cot fly and put them up in the sky. Mr Jamie was only threenearlyfour. He didn’t know what they should do next.

“Ummm ... shall we find your island? So you can go back and see your hammock?” Mr Jamie really wanted to find out what a hammock was.

“That’s a very good idea”, said the Tickling Honda. “The only problem is, I don’t know where we are. We flew all this way in the dark, and now I’m a bit lost.”

“We got lost because of your stupid driving”, thought Mr Jamie, although he didn’t say this to the Tickling Honda. He didn’t want the Tickling Honda to get upset. Mummy got lost quite a lot, usually when she didn’t listen to the man talking inside her car telling her which way to go and decided to try and find her way there all by herself. Then they would stay in the car for a very long time, until Mr Jamie really needed a wee but they had to find their house first. Mummy wasn’t very good at listening.

“I know!”, said Mr Jamie. “We need a map. Pirates always use maps when they’re looking for treasure. Shall we go and find a map.”

“That’s a brilliant idea”, said the Tickling Honda. “Right then shipmates! About turn! Forward bound! Let’s hunt out a map, and then we’ll ... uh oh.”

“Then we’ll uh oh?”, said Mr Jamie. “What do you mean, then we’ll uh oh? What’s an uh oh?”

The Tickling Honda didn’t say anything. He just pointed. And Mr Jamie, and even little Beth, turned their heads, and looked out the side of the cot, and saw, through the clouds, coming towards them ...